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Article published In:
Language, Context and Text
Vol. 5:1 (2023) ► pp.108–123

From the personal and private to the community and public

Adapting Sydney School pedagogy to train support workers of people with intellectual disability

| University of Wollongong , Australia

This paper reports on the adaptation of Sydney School genre pedagogy’s Teaching Learning Cycle for the design of a workshop that aims to encourage disability support workers and their managers to think more expansively about the people with intellectual disabilities they work with and support. The paper introduces the pedagogy and its theoretical underpinnings as well as the two fields of knowledge that are drawn on in the workshop: person-centred care and positive behaviour support. It then details the design and implementation of the workshops and finishes with some evidence of the workshop’s initial impact on workers and the disability organisation’s support of people living with disability.

Keywords: Sydney School pedagogy, the Teaching Learning Cycle, training disability support workers, behavioural change in disability support workers
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociocultural theories of learning applied to this work
  • 3.Introducing Sydney School genre pedagogy
  • 4.The workshop using the Teaching Learning Cycle
    • 4.1Step 1 of the teaching learning cycle: Setting context – generating interest and purpose
    • 4.2Building field: Developing knowledge and understanding about a topic
    • 4.3Deconstruction
    • 4.4Modelling how to fill in the “Needs” wheel
    • 4.5(Supported) independent construction
  • 5.Evaluating the workshop: Changes in attitude and internalisation of new knowledge
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00044.dre
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